Acid Test Series 1 of 8 - the Priority of Prayer — Al Whittinghill

The Priority of Prayer in the Christian Life

There's no question in our minds that God wants to make it very clear to us that prayer is his priority. In fact, prayer is the most important ingredient in any Christian's life. I think that's true as we look at the Bible, it's so obvious, we can see it so clearly.

Prayer is the surest indication of whether your life or your church or anything is truly spiritual or not. The level and degree of prayer reveals where a thing really is. Prayer is the greatest possible blessing that you could give to your family or your friends, no question about it.

You can't do anything better for someone than pray. It's the most effective way to strengthen you when you're in trial or when you're in temptation. There's no greater way for strength. It's the single thing that the devil fears more than anything else.

He hated it a while ago when we all prayed in small groups like that. It's the thing that God wants to do in your life more than anything else, prayer. It's the thing that is the greatest thing you can do for God or man, is pray.

Jesus Teaches His Disciples to Pray

So I want to go, first of all, to a little beginning diving board of Luke chapter 11. And we want to look at Luke chapter 11, verse 1. And here we see the disciples making a request of the Lord Jesus.

Luke chapter 11, verse 1. You know, Romans 8, 26 says that we don't know how to pray as we ought. And all of us that are gathered here obviously have gathered because we feel that. We don't know how to pray as we ought.

But that verse also says that God's Spirit will Himself make an intercession within us. That He Himself will look in our hearts and the Spirit will give us words. And, in fact, that's what it says here in Luke 11, verse 1.

It came to pass that as He was praying in a certain place, when He stopped, one of His disciples said unto Him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John Baptist also taught his disciples. And so that's why we're here.

The same thing they wanted is what we want. We want the Lord Jesus to teach us how to pray. And it's really true that prayer is learned not so much in the classroom as in the closet. Prayer is really its own definition.

You can have all the definitions you want. And you can have your notebooks and cassettes full of information. But really learning to pray involves an act of our will as the Spirit of God gives us the power to respond to revelation.

So we need to be taught to pray as far as Jesus to teach them. They didn't say teach us to preach. They didn't say teach us to raise the dead or do miracles or even teach us to worship. In the fullest sense, they said teach us to pray.

Christ’s Life of Intercession

Perhaps that was because that prayer was the most conspicuous thing about Jesus' life. We may talk about that before the weekend's over. But if you consider, not only was it the most conspicuous thing when His ministry was going on, it's still the most conspicuous thing about Him.

Just think of it. For 30 years, Jesus prepared for His ministry as He was a carpenter and a son and a brother and a student of God's Word in the truest sense of the word. And for 30 years, He prayed. And then we have three years of ministry.

Again, where prayer was the most conspicuous thing. One great act of dying on the cross and raising from the dead. And then 1 ,900 plus years of prayer. That's what He's been doing, seated at the right hand of the Father.

He's been ever living to pray for you and me, those who belong to Him. He's a priest of heaven, the high priest, who's in continual intercession. And what an obvious emphasis on prayer in the Lord Jesus Christ.

So to pray as God would have us is surely the greatest achievement of any human being on earth. It's the most complex assignment, but yet the simplest thing of all. It's a great mystery. So how easy it is to faint when it comes to prayer.

Obviously, we all have struggled with this fainting. In Luke chapter 18, verse 1, we see the words of our Lord Jesus again. As He says in verse 1, He spoke a parable to them, to this end, that men ought always to pray and not to faint.

In every circumstance, we are to pray. Now, if you're like me, it is very easy to let prayer get crowded out. I know when I was first saved, it was through prayer that I came to the Lord Jesus. Obviously, if you've been saved, it was when you prayed and welcomed Him into your life as your King and as your sin forgiver and blood cleanser.

He came in and you knew by instinct of birth that prayer was your native breath. You just knew it. And you began to pray. It was a joy. If you've been born again, that's what happens. And so as you began to pray, soon, if you're like me, there were more and more things to pray for.

And people might come and say, Brother, would you pray for this? And as I prayed for that, I found I could remember everything. So I heard someone say, Try a prayer list. And I tried a prayer list. And it got longer and longer and longer.

And soon I was late for my prayer meeting because my wheelbarrow with my prayer list broke down. And I found myself, when I would pray for something, God necessarily wouldn't do what I told Him to do.

And then when I forgot to pray, it seems as if His mercy and grace were so great that He would do it anyway. And so, you know, more practical things became the pressing urgency as I began involved in witnessing and so many things that are all good.

And prayer was placed back into the back burner in many cases. And I became discouraged. The whole time I would say, You need to pray. Does that ever happen to you? And then along would come someone and say, You must pray or you'd come to a conference like this.

And you'd get, Oh, no! And you'd recommit. You'd rededicate your life to prayer. And then you'd become discouraged. And you'd discontinue it again. And it was a cycle of discouragement and determination and then defeat over and over and over again.

We let prayer get crowded out. And it ceases to become a delight. It's a duty. It's a duty. It's a routine instead of a romance. Well, I want to say tonight that God wants to bring back to us the spirit of prayer.

Not just the knowledge. But I believe to every man in this room, He wants to send us home with a desire birth from God to pray and the equipment to do it. Not only to pray yourself, but to lead your family and to be a catalyst in your congregation of fellow Christians to bring them to the same understanding and desire.

Prayer as God’s Priority for the Individual

Well, first of all tonight then, prayer is God's priority. That's the first area that I'm really going to zero in on. Prayer is God's priority. That's the theme of our conference, the priority of prayer.

But I want to share first of all about the priority of prayer under two headings. First of all, prayer is priority for the individual. And then we'll talk about prayer being priority for the church as a whole.

Your church. My church. Prayer is a priority for the individual. Well, the Bible makes it very clear that prayer is God's priority for every single person in this room. There are no exceptions. Each one of us have a common calling.

We've been called to pray. Without any exception, nothing else will take the place of prayer in your life. Infinite Bible study will never take the place of prayer. Much service, knocking on doors, even what's soul winning or being a deacon or taking the offering or preaching will never take the place of prayer.

Nothing else can substitute but will come only through prayer. In fact, all success in spiritual work can be traced to prayer. Dwight Moody used to say that every work of God can be traced to a kneeling form.

Wherever you see a soul saved, you can be sure someone, somewhere has saved. There's another explanation besides what we see. Someone has prayed and wrestled and fought hell's legions on their knees. Prayer, really then, is the gauge of our spirituality.

Spiritual health can be discerned by the prayer in our life. Not by the knowledge of the Bible, although it's good to know the Bible. Not by your service. Not by your Bible study. Because all those things you see are man to man.

You can go right on with service and Bible study and going to church and being recognized as a Christian while being prayerless. You see, all those things are man to man. But prayer is God to man. And it makes it totally the real place where spirituality is determined.

We can be very busy in Christian service while we're very sick spiritually. Like the businessman who works himself into a state of heart disease while he doesn't even feel it or know it. But the symptoms are there and the doctor says, you're a sick man.

Well, prayerlessness shows our heart is ill. And it shows that we need to have the great physician work on it. The acid test of devotion is prayer. And I can make this disgusting statement, it's true though for each of us, that the priority that we place upon prayer in our lives is in reality the priority that we really place upon God.

It really is true. Because prayer is dependent on God in action. And it gives Him all the credit. So if prayer is meager or if it's weak, it is because one reason we consider it supplementary instead of foundational.

It is something that we think may be an addendum. You ever heard anybody say, you going to church tonight? No, brother, it's only a prayer meeting. Charles Spurgeon wrote a book called Only a Prayer Meeting.

Only a prayer meeting. Well, we'll talk more about that. But prayer is the place of reality. Robert Murray McChain, that saint in Scotland who died at the ripe old age of 29, who affected so many men of God, he made this statement that what a man is on his knees before God, that's what he is and nothing more.

What a man is when he gets to his closet and goes down to his knees in the presence of God alone, that is who he really is. When all the masks come off and God sees us as we are. You see, credentials of man mean nothing in prayer.

A holy life is not made in the closet alone, but there's no question that it's certainly not made without the closet. It takes more than the closet, but it certainly takes the closet. There has never been a man used in the Bible mightily of God.

There's never been a man in church history that's been used mightily by God who also was not also mighty in prayer. He knew that to be much for God, you're going to have to be much with God. And that to stand on your feet before men, you're going to have to spend time on your knees before God.

There's just no other way around it. There's a lot of things we can do and succeed on a visible level that are prayerless. But if you're going to affect eternity and be effective in the spirit realm and see real results that can't be explained any other way but God, it's going to have to be through prayer.

Someone says one time, all these coincidences, they're just coincidences when you pray. Well, I'll tell you something, brother. When I pray, coincidences happen. And when I don't pray, they don't seem to happen.

You ever notice that? Absence of prayer in a person's life is proof that you've been trampled on by the devil. It really is. And we've got to get serious about it this weekend. The demons never fear prayerless lives or prayerless ministries.

S .D. Gordon once said, and I'm sure if my brother probably, I'm going to quote a lot of things before him. That's an advantage of going first, rob him of all these quotes. S .D. Gordon once said, Satan laughs at our toil.

He mocks at our preaching this weekend. But he trembles when we pray together. He trembles when we pray. That's why, you see, he fights prayer more than anything else. That's why person after person who's come this weekend has come to me and said, boy, did I have a hard time getting here.

Anybody have a hard time getting here? Anybody think they were sick all week? I know people on their back, they hurt their back, they have squabbles, they have financial upheaval. I mean, I'm telling you what.

Distraction, disturbance, disaster, trying to keep us from focusing in on the one thing we really need in our lives. A renewed vision for prayer. Well, the devil knows, you see, that for some of us, a recovery of the vision of prayer, one good weekend of real prayer could undo years of his planning for your family and your life.

In fact, it could just ruin what he's got planned for your children if you become a praying father. And if you really get the vision again, it could turn whole families around and renew marriages and restore families to God's order.

Spiritual Warfare and the Praying Church

You see, the devil has some men that he fears. Remember in Acts chapter 19 when those seven sons of Sceva, vagabond Jews, were going to cast out demons out of this one particular individual and they went over and said, come out of him in the name of Jesus, the one who Paul is preaching.

You see, that's second-hand authority. And the demons did come out because they got mad like a hornet's nest and they jumped all over those men and these men learned not to try second-hand authority.

They ran away naked and bleeding. The demons tore their clothes off and cut them to shreds. And as they fell upon those men and tormented them, they said these words, Jesus we know. Of course, the demons know Jesus.

But then they added a high compliment, and Paul we know. I can almost hear him. Oh, we hate him. Oh, he's so effective. But who are you? They said. Who are you? Brother, does Satan know you? Or, you know, some people say, oh, the devil gave me such a hard time today.

Well, you know, the devil's not infinite. He only goes to those that are effectively used in prayer. He might send a little bitty old spot of darkness out against some of us, but most guys are not even deterring the devil.

And he doesn't have to put any big guns out. He has to only go to those who are praying. The reason Paul was known in hell was the first thing God ever said about him after he was saved. You know what it was?

God said it. In Acts 9 -11, it says, Behold, he is praying. And it's a term of astonishment. God is astonished. Paul had prayed all his life. I mean, with many prayers as a Pharisee, but now it's as if God says, Behold, he's praying.

He's really got it. He's on his knees in the place called straight. He's really praying. And from that day on, Paul would never let a breath come out without praying, without ceasing. Everything he did, he said in everything by prayer.

The little Scripture verse in Philippians 4 -6 at the bottom of our program here that we have out. Jesus said, you see, Watch and pray, in Matthew 26, so that you enter not into temptation. Watch and pray so that you don't enter into temptation because, you see, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

The key inherent in that statement is that if you don't pray, your flesh will overwhelm your spirit. If you want to stay strong spiritually, keen in discernment, acute in hearing, then you must become a person of habitual prayer who's used to listening and used to dialogue in the heavenly realm.

If you do not, then you will become dull spiritually and you will begin to walk empty and dull and not hot but cold. And the bad thing is, if you're busy in a Christian church, you'll have to be a deacon in the flesh.

You'll have to be a preacher in the flesh. You'll have to be a father in the flesh because your responsibilities go right along. They don't stop when you stop praying. We must pray. Watch and pray. Prayer strengthens our spirit and when we pray, it sets the Word of God in our heart on fire and fire takes charge in our bones.

So, we could sooner expect, says John Wesley, a baby to grow without food than for a human soul to grow without prayer. Think about that, those of you who have children. You could sooner expect your kids to grow without feeding them than you could your own soul to grow without prayer.

The Hidden Life of Prayer

Priority for the individual. You see, that's why it's going to be amazing when God opens His who's who one day. He has a who's who, you know it? He has what he calls a book of remembrance of prayer. In fact, he keeps our tears in a bottle, it says in Psalm 56.

Tears, I believe, are repentance and prayer and sympathy along with God. He keeps them in a bottle. I often kid my wife saying, she's got this giant bottle, this angel's carrying it, and my little angel's just tossing it around like that.

She has liquid prayer, as Spurgeon would say. The book of remembrance. Many who look like they're first in our day, friends, will be last at the back of the line. And many who look like they're last will be first at the front of all because they're famous with God.

You know, there's some people in this room that I can tell you, when I consider their lives, I'm humbled by their prayer life. You don't know them, they'll never have a great ministry, perhaps, it's known, but they're famous with God.

I'm telling you, some of you put us in the dirt when it comes to our prayer life. I could tell you about a little man in Chicago who died 12 years ago. His name was Rex. I won't tell you his last name.

He wouldn't even let you take his picture. He came home from the land of Israel as a missionary 30 years before that. See, 12 years ago he died. They carried him out of his house on a stretcher. He'd come home 30 years before that from the mission field because his health wouldn't let him stay there.

And so he came and he didn't retire. You know what he did? He had an all-night ministry of intercession continually for 30 years. 30 years. He never slept through the night. In fact, when he left his house on the stretcher, it was the first time he'd been out of his house in 8 years.

You say, well, did he sleep? Of course he slept. He slept in the daytime. He prayed through the night. And when he died and he was carried out of that stretcher, out of that house on a stretcher, I believe it was as great a loss to our country as if you'd shot the president because men like that are rare.

One of God's hidden ones, one of His people who see the priority, one of those ones who pray in secret. You know, it says, let every man take heed how he builds on that foundation that's laid, which is Jesus.

In 1 Corinthians 3 it says it's possible to build upon what God's given you with wood, hay, or stubble are gold, silver, and precious stones. What does that mean? Well, a lot of things I suppose, but one of them surely is this.

Wood, hay, and stubble are those things that are the result of public ministry, I believe. They're visual. They're out on top of the ground. It's what you get when men are through. But gold, silver, and precious stones are formed in secret, in secret, under heat and under pressure.

And I believe it's as sure as I can just stand up here that those gold, silver, and precious stones is that hidden life before God that stands before Him in the holy place by night and lifts up holy hands.

Prayer as the Church’s Ministry

Priority for the individual, God's priority, prayer. But not only for the individual, but priority for His church. That's the second thing about prayer being priority. When Jesus built His church, He wanted prayer to be its priority.

In fact, He said, My Father's house shall be called a house of fellowship. Did He say that? My Father's house will be called a house that sings without ceasing. No. That builds buildings that are splendid.

No. My Father's house shall be called the house of prayer for all the nations. And He's talking about living stones, not bricks and mortar. He's talking about you are the temple of God, a holy habitation.

When we gather together, we are a holy habitation for God's spirit of prayer and we are to pray together. We are a house of prayer, a praying congregation. You see in the book of Acts, you see them all, those first five chapters, over and over and over again that the first public assembly recorded was for prayer.

And over and over, prayer is mentioned over 30 times in the book of Acts. That's why it's the acts of the Holy Spirit, not the apostles. They were vessels of what they received through Him. Channels of light, riverbeds of blessing, number one priority.

And I believe just like when Moses built the tabernacle, God said, Moses, make the tabernacle like the original in heaven, the one you saw in the spirit. God says to the churches in our day, see that you make my church according to the pattern showed to you in the original.

Look back into the book of Acts and see the praying congregation and make the pattern of the church like that. I believe it's true that God actually intended for prayer to be the greatest way through which the church would do her greatest work.

Not through outward service, but through prayer. Service was intended to be picking up the spoils of war through victorious prayer. As we on our knees lay the foundations of the earth and plant the very heavens, God would give us the power of prayer.

In fact, he says, right in John 14, right after he talks about the greater works, people always say, what are the greater works that Jesus said we would do? Do you know what the next verse is after Jesus talks about greater works?

He says, and whatsoever you ask in my name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in my name, I will do it. I think the greatest works the church can ever do are done in the place of prayer.

And when we go out, it's simply picking up the spoils of victorious prayer. The early church understood that the real battle was in prayer. That they didn't wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities and against powers.

Over and over it says, against, in Ephesians 6, 12, against, against, a spiritual agonizing and wrestling and laboring in the real place of true battle in the Spirit. I think that we ought to put that over our prayer rooms.

We wrestle not against flesh and blood. Maybe in some places we could just leave it at we wrestle not. And it'd be more true and appropriate. We don't get to that point. We just come with our soliloquies of religion, with all of our pet prayers that have been taught us by those who've taken up the offering that we've heard and rehearsed.

And so we repeat the same thing. I'm telling you, that's how too much of our praying really is. Taught by man instead of learned from God. You see, one old saint said, God has chosen in His sovereignty to limit His workings on the earth to the level of the church's prayer.

Let me say that again. It's kind of tough. God has chosen in His sovereignty to limit His working on this earth to the degree and level of the church's prayer. He's given the church the privilege and the honor of standing on earth for His will.

And we are to be like a bridge as we pray for His mercies and His grace. God will faithfully burden the church but the church must pray. And so as we gather together we are like an outlet of a pipe that we gather and we vocalize from a point of unity and faith what God intends to do.

We decree it. We reign in life. Through Christ Jesus in prayer. You see, that is why it may be said, I believe, that prayer is not just a ministry of the church. Prayer could really be considered the ministry of the church.

The ministry. Because it has such priority in the Word of God. But yet we call it only a prayer meeting. I've said this a lot of times and you've probably heard me say it before. But if you want to see how popular your church is, come on Sunday morning.

If you want to see how popular your preacher is, you come on Sunday night. If you want to see how popular Jesus is, come to prayer meetings. The devil was absolutely hysterical in those early days when 3 ,000 were saved and then 5 ,000 were saved and he wanted to stop this power of the church.

So what did he do? He went for the jugular vein of the power. How did he do that? Did he come with an onslaught? Not at first. He came and he attacked the prayer meeting. What weapons did he use? Well, the same ones he does today.

Disunity, Distraction, and Destruction

He came to the church that was thriving in resurrection power and in Acts chapter 6 he comes with disunity. He fills the heart of Ananias and Sapphira to lie to the Holy Spirit and they said they gave all that they had when they kept back some for themselves.

Now God wouldn't judge them for not giving all they had. What He judged them for was trying to appear to be more spiritual than they really were. Trying to make a mask or a pretense and be honored for their sacrifice when there was none.

If God did that today half our churches would drop dead. Because you see God struck them dead. Ananias and Sapphira. And instead of that disunity that breach in the Spirit like the devil had planned it says in Acts 6 verse 14 or 12, somewhere right in there it says that great fear came upon the whole church and nobody dared join themselves.

No halfway people. Boy, they just said we're not getting near them. And so the devil's plan failed. Disunity failed. And the church kept thriving. Well, when disunity failed in, excuse me, that's Acts chapter 5 not chapter 6, Acts 5.

In Acts chapter 6 he tried his second method. In Acts chapter 6 the first four verses we read that the church began to multiply. And widows and orphans were needing attention. Now in James chapter 1 it says that's the best thing you can do.

You can't be any more pure in your religion than to minister to widows and orphans in their affliction. If you want to be right with God and please Him minister to widows and orphans. But yet it said in Acts chapter 6 verse 4 that the destruction that they realized that was happening to them was grievous.

And they said we've got to find holy men of God full of the faith and the Holy Spirit to appoint to this good thing because the good is the enemy of the bad. We've got to give ourselves continually to the prayer and the ministry of God's word.

You see, they were trying to be distracted by the devil. But they saw through it. In our day busy, busy, busy. I'll tell you a lot of Christians have buried their spirituality in the graves of their Christian activities.

No time for holiness. So busy. Well, that failed. Disunity failed. Distraction failed. And so in Acts chapter 8 the devil comes with the fierce persecution of the apostle Paul who was Saul at that time.

Destruction. Disunity, distraction and then destruction and it didn't work because as Saul came and tried to throw every little group of people meeting for prayer or fellowship in the jail they went around spreading even more the gospel, gossiping the gospel and prayer spread instead of being diminished.

And so he failed. The devil failed but his methods are the same today. He wants to cut off our supply lines. Now suppose we're like an army going out to battle. Suppose there's a giant warfare in World War II and we're going out to fight and just before a strategic conflict the army stops and waits and waits and you say what are you waiting for?

We're waiting for supplies. Well, suddenly their waiting doesn't seem ridiculous, does it? Because you'd be a fool to go into a crucial conflict without supply. Well, the church of our day comes to a crucial conflict and we need to wait upon the Lord for supply because He wants us to receive from Him.

You know, if you want to have victory you've got to attack. You'll never have victory just being passive. You've got to attack. One great general said that. In warfare you'll hardly ever see victory without an assault.

And the church of Jesus Christ must make an attack. We're on the defensive in our day. We've got to get on the attack. We've got to wait for supplies and then attack. I believe that the neglect of prayer as a church is the reason why the church is being laughed at in America.

And they find us amusing instead of amazing. They found the early church amazing they find us amusing. Let me ask you, has the committee meeting replaced the prayer meeting? Has it? I believe it has. Have we let fasting be replaced by feasting?

Potluck dinners and all the rest, they're great. But we feast instead of fast. And we organize instead of agonize. And we have brilliance stressed instead of brokenness. And we have activities, activities instead of obedience.

And whereas the early church was led by men of kneeling today it's led by men of standing. President of the bank, whoever else is there that's important. We allow fashion to be more important than passion in the churches.

Well, without prayer the glow is gone. The fire goes out in the church. And there's no life in the congregation. You know why there's so few souls being saved in our churches? We hear about a half a million baptisms in one great denomination.

And we say glory to God. But you see, I want to just challenge you to figure out the number of weeks in a year. And figure out the number of churches. There's 33 ,000 churches in that denomination. Half a million baptisms a year?

52 Sundays in a year? You figure that out? I'm going to tell you that's an average of over 400 people in each congregation out of 13 million people. And if you figure that out that's less than one and a half converts every month.

God doesn't take newborn babies and put them in the arms of a corpse. At the hospital, they don't do that. They don't take a newborn baby to the morgue. They put it in the arms of someone who cares. And we need to teach people to pray.

The Power of Effectual Prayer

The priority of prayer. But secondly, tonight, the power of prayer. One day we're going to see that prayer is the greatest factor in human history. When it's all said and done, nothing's had a greater effect on human history than prayer.

I'm sure my brother will take us to James 5 .16 before the weekend is over. But I want to read in James 5. And I want to read verse 16 and 17. Confess your faults one to another and pray for one another that you might be healed.

The effectual, fervent prayer, the boiling prayer of a righteous man avails much. Elijah was a man subject to like passions like we are. Just like you or me, brother. An example of a righteous man who prayed.

It says, He prayed earnestly. He prayed in his praying that it might not rain. And it rained not on the earth for the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again. And the heavens gave forth rain.

And the earth brought forth her fruit. Well, there's an example, Elijah, of a man who has more power in prayer. One man than a hundred preachers. You could take a hundred preachers and they could all preach at the sky.

And it would still never make it rain or stop raining. Prayer is greater than preaching. It's greater to talk to God for men than to talk to men for God. They're both necessary. I'm not minimizing preaching.

But one old missionary said, Jowett, one old missionary named Jowett said, I would rather teach one man to pray than ten men to preach. And someone said, why is that, brother? That's a strange statement.

You'd rather teach one man to pray than ten men to preach. Well, because of this. Preaching and teaching are vital. They reveal the will of God. But once the will of God is revealed, only prayer can lay hold of it.

Only prayer can secure it. Only prayer can make it real in the life. Without prayer, we become what America has become, brothers and sisters. But there's no sisters here. We become people that are just wishers and hopers and theorists.

We have a form of godliness but no power. And we're like the people at the mall that are habitual shoppers that go and look and admire and long for and dream of, but there's an invisible barrier called glass between them and that desired thing.

And as we're there and we hear the Word of God and we understand it and we want it in our families, we understand what it means to be a man of God and a godly father, we can never lay hold of it without prayer.

Frustrated Christianity without prayer. Master, why could we not cast out this demon? Simple, said Jesus in Matthew 17, 19. This kind cometh out but by prayer and fasting. If you've lost the glow, if you've lost the vitality, if you've lost the power, prayer and fasting, brother.

Prayer and fasting. The neglect of prayer is the chief cause of backsliding. It's the reason we're reading headlines in the paper about the church. All failure begins at the closet door. I believe that's a safe statement.